Hypocrisy

He began saying to His disciples first of all, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” (Luke 12:1)

If asked to name the Pharisees’ biggest problem most would probably say “legalism”. Why does Jesus say it’s hypocrisy? Maybe the reason is that while legalism wrongly identifies keeping rules as the greatest good, hypocrisy contradicts that good itself. Legalism is mistaking the path for the destination, but hypocrisy is headed in another direction entirely. Jesus says that hypocrisy made the Pharisees spiritually sick and may easily infect us too.

A typical definition for hypocrisy is saying one thing while doing another. The word itself refers to an actor playing a role. We think of hypocrisy as pretending to be someone other than who we really are. However, many times we ought to try to be someone we are not. In fact, we should always be trying to be better people, acting kinder than we feel, and more loving than our thoughts. Strictly speaking, this could be called hypocrisy but it is not what Jesus is warning against. He is concerned about us contradicting, either knowingly or not, the essential good which should be our goal.

For instance, Jesus says that praying to impress others is hypocritical (Matt. 6:5). The essential goodness of prayer is that we are mindful of God. If we pray to seek human approval we maintain the form but destroy the true good of prayer itself. Our prayer, which still appears to be mindful of God, no longer has anything to do with God. The corruption of the good of prayer leaves us with a white-painted tomb full of bones.

Similarly, trying to remove a speck from another’s eye has the form of a good concern for holiness and spiritual transformation. However, if I have a log in my own eye it reveals that I actually have no concern for such change or I would have addressed my own faults. I’m a hypocrite for having the appearance but lacking the substance (Matt. 7:5). There is a blatant contradiction within what I am doing.

Quite differently, many mistakenly feel as if they are hypocrites. These tender-hearted believers think that because as Christians they make mistakes they are hypocrites. Sinning does not make anyone a hypocrite. Jesus does not say sinners are hypocrites, but rather those whose spiritual practices are in fact undermining the very good they supposedly uphold.

I do not mean to imply that we always know when we are being hypocritical. We may think of hypocrisy as the attempt to deceive others, but a bigger danger is for self-deception. Often someone else has to show us the contradiction in how we are living. Many of us grew up within religious traditions that claimed to be very concerned with following God’s commands, but loving our neighbors somehow was not done well. We were hypocritical but did not realize it. We can be genuine and trying hard, but still foster a contradiction within how we live.

Jesus pointed out hypocrisy as did the prophets of Israel before him. He warns us not to be corrupted as were the Pharisees. Unfortunately, sincerity is not the remedy. We need humility to enable us to recognize when others point out our inconsistencies, and then courage to live consistently in following Christ.